The Lazy Dungeon Master

by Michael Shea

  Where do you come up with your ideas for your game? What influences you as you prepare to run a D&D game?

  Tough to answer concisely. During 4e, I’ve been running a lot of published adventures to cut down on some prep time. Of course recently, I’ve been inspired by my favorite video game series of all time, the Myst/Uru series of games by Cyan. I tend to try to take non-traditional genres like Westerns, or Sci-Fi and convert them to fantasy tales.

  What are your most useful tips, tricks, and tools when preparing for your D&D game?

  Use a mind-map of some kind. There are great tools online for this kind of thing, but you can just as easily mind-map on a legal pad or whiteboard. Isolate the components of your adventure/campaign, and take a little piece at a time. You don’t have to tackle anything in “order” either, although you want to know enough about what’s coming immediately ahead so you’re not stuck with that “Uhhhh” moment. I’m lousy at it, but you should also be prepared with some stock encounters in case your players decided to take your adventure off the rails. An ad-hoc town square brawl, river voyage, or cave exploring experience can keep things fresh and make it seem like your world is far more developed than it really is.

  If you want to use elaborate sets, go for it! However, make sure they’re special events (boss fights, major conflicts, etc.). The players will think they’re special and you’ll have less a chance of your players ignoring your beautiful terrain in favor of some other event. I recommend ALWAYS planning at least 2 weeks ahead when you want to do an elaborate set up. Make sure it is created in such a way that it can be moved, or replaced quickly if the players finish it quickly or if they go off the rails.

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank the gamers who helped me test these ideas at the game table: Paul Cooley, Casey Creech, James Grummell, Lisa Jo Grummell, Derek Lahousse, Jessica Lahousse, Mike Schiller, Michelle Shea, and Bryan Wire.

  I want to thank the ten dungeon masters who answered my dungeon master questionnaire: Teos Abadia, Dave Chalker, Jeff Greiner, James Grummell, Tracy Hurley, Matt James, Michael Mallen, Davena Oaks, Steve Townshend, and Randall Walker. Their input helped expand and verify many of the ideas in this book.

  Thank you to Jimi Bonogofsky, Marilyn Kupetz, and Erik Nowak for their artwork, editing, and design. They helped this book look less like an essay from a twelve year old and more like a professional product.

  Jeff Greiner and Michael Mallen reviewed the drafts of this book, helping to refine the concepts into something palatable to advanced dungeon masters. I greatly appeciate their help.

  I want to thank Jeremy Crawford, Mike Mearls, Chris Perkins, and Rodney Thompson at Wizards of the Coast for stepping out into the public to discuss how they run their own games.

  Most of all, I thank my wife, Michelle Shea. This book wouldn’t have been possible without her help and who suffered through countless dog-walks discussing and refining the way of the Lazy Dungeon Master.

  Thank you all.

  References

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May 2012. http://slyflourish.com/dnd_improv.html.

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  Wheaton, Wil. “Fiasco Set-up.” 19 July 2012. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuJizhyf-y4.

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  A Word About Piracy

  This book is the work of an author and a small group of editors, artists, and designers. There’s no giant faceless corporation or an army of lawyers between your money and the creator. I built, designed, and distributed the book to make it as easy as possible for you to use it however you want. There’s no digital rights management on the book. You can copy it to any of your devices, print it out, and use it however you want for your own personal use.

  I also tried to keep the price down and set it to the value of the work. If you did somehow get a copy of this book without paying for it, I ask that you please visit http://slyflourish.com/lazydm and pay for it. Your money will help fund the research, time, and materials for future works like this. To steal a quote from Walt Disney: I don’t write books to make money, I make money to write more books.

  So I ask for your help and support. If you’re reading this book and haven’t paid for it, please do.

  Thank you,

  Mike Shea

  About The Author

  Michael E. Shea is a writer, gamer, and technologist and creator of Sly Flourish, a website dedicated to building the better Dungeons and Dragons dungeon master. Mike is the the author of Sly Flourish’s Dungeon Master Tips and Sly Flourish’s Running Epic Tier D&D Games and is a freelance author for Wizards of the Coast. Mike has been playing Dungeons and Dragons since 1987.

  Mike Shea lives with his wife, Michelle, and their dire-warg Jebu in Virginia.